


don’t go there, we know you love a nightmare

by phonemicengineer



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, F/F, How many fire metaphors can I fit into one fic, Implied Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-08
Updated: 2020-02-08
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:27:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22608514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phonemicengineer/pseuds/phonemicengineer
Summary: Gertrude has been remade in a thousand small ways until sometimes her own body is alien to her. She would be resentful if she didn’t also know that she’d do it all again to stop the Lightless Flame.orTwo not-quite humans try to be human together. This is not a love story.
Relationships: Agnes Montague/Gertrude Robinson, Agnes Montague/Jude Perry
Comments: 19
Kudos: 48
Collections: The Magnus Archives Rare Pairs 2020





	don’t go there, we know you love a nightmare

**Author's Note:**

  * For [humansandotherpeople](https://archiveofourown.org/users/humansandotherpeople/gifts).



> For the prompt "Would love to explore the canonical weird bonds of Acolyte and chosen one/the bond that keeps them both human more and also make them more wlw." 
> 
> This ended up leaning way more heavily on Gertrude than I was originally intending but I hope you like it!

An hour after her arrival Gertrude decides that she does not like the Scottish Highlands. It seems like the kind of place people go to enjoy energetic and nature loving activities, things like bird watching and hiking. She had a roommate, once, who was fond of hiking, and would often try to tempt Gertrude to join her on expeditions to various outdoor locations. Gertrude had always declined, and eventually the roommate stopped asking.

Hiking, in her opinion, is a waste of energy unless there’s a destination at the end. Gertrude does not, as a rule, enjoy pointless activity.

“Follow this line and it should take you where you want to go,” says the overly friendly Scottish man Gertrude asks for directions. He highlights a path on her map with his finger, the paper crinkling under his hand, “Enjoy your hike! Lots of beautiful nature up there.”

Gertrude does not like beautiful nature, she thinks as she painstakingly hauls herself and her backpack full of ritual items up some craggy rocks and through the forest. She doesn’t like scenic vistas, or meandering trails, or the clear, sharp, Scottish air.

She allows herself a few more minutes of resentful grumbling before admitting that her complaining is covering the deep anxiety she’s been feeling since she arrived in Scotland. She’s not sure if it’s due to her distance from the Institute, or maybe just what she’s here to do, but she can’t shake the way it’s setting off every alarm bell she possesses.

Gertrude pauses to consider her location and makes a decisive turn to the right, following her gut. Stepping off the path, Gertrude quickly crests the top of a rise and enters into an oddly serene clearing.

She drops her backpack and gets to work.

...

The first thing she feels once the ritual starts are sharp pinpricks on her arms. Gertrude has a tattoo, a small thing on the inside of her arm that she got in a rare fit of sentimentality and teenage rebellion. This feels like that, and like the slow drag of a needle administering stitches, and also not at all like either of those things. Whatever it is, it digs into her skin and _pulls_.

The next thing she feels, and the only thing she feels for the span of several indeterminable hours, is the fire.

By the time Gertrude drags herself and her now-empty backpack out of the forest and to the nearest motel she can find, it’s the early hours of the morning. She’s shaky and exhausted beyond measure and every breath feels like her chest is collapsing. But she’s still British, so she pulls herself together and pays for a room without having any kind of meltdown in the motel lobby.

She throws up in the adjoining bathroom when she gets there, washes her face and scrubs at the soot on her hands, and throws up again. Then she takes off her glasses and collapses on the bed without even undoing her hair.

Gertrude does not have the dreams yet. She’s worked at the Magnus Institute for four years, an internship in her last year of university turned into a full time job, and the current archivist has yet to die in an attack on the Institute. In her later years Gertrude will become accustomed to the Watching that appears in her dreams, but now, in a motel room in Scotland, having completed a ritual she barely understands, Gertrude is not prepared for the dream she has that night.

There’s a girl. Fifteen, maybe, or sixteen, something about her still gangly and teenager-ish. Her hair is long and straight and a rusty brown color that catches the light, turning it gold in places. Her eyes are large and captivating and Gertrude can’t seem to look away from them.

“You’re Agnes,” Gertrude says, her voice muffled to her own ears, as though she’s speaking through a barrier.

“Yes,” Agnes says. She doesn’t ask how Gertrude knows her. She doesn’t ask for Gertrude’s name.

“You are meddling in something you don’t understand,” Agnes tells her, this strange teenager with eyes that seem too old for her face.

Gertrude tilts her chin up, proud and dignified and everything she tries to be. She’s not afraid, now, even if she should be.

She’ll learn, later, to be afraid. For now, she cannot look away and will not back down and she says, “I’ll keep meddling for as long as I need to.”

“You’ll die that way,” Agnes says, and there’s something strange and layered about her voice, as though she is many voices instead of one.

Gertrude knows she’s telling the truth. “So be it.”

Then Agnes bursts into flame, an inferno that explodes outward and engulfs Gertrude before she has a chance to move or defend herself. It consumes them both.

Gertrude wakes sweaty, coughing smoke from her lungs, and tosses the sheets off in an effort to cool her skin. She goes to the bathroom to splash water on her face again, meeting her own eyes in the mirror. She looks flushed and shaky.

And, Gertrude notices, turning her head slightly in the mirror, one loose strand of her normally black hair has turned auburn, rust brown and gold when it catches the light.

...

Agnes Montague is in her twenties the next time Gertrude sees her, the first time she sees her in person.

Gertrude still doesn’t know exactly what the ritual did, despite extensive and aggressive research. She knows that it was the Web, manipulating them all, letting Gertrude play right into its hands. But the real purpose, the real outcome, is still a mystery to her. She’s not sure she will ever truly understand that.

The symptoms, though, those she knows intimately. They are many, and varied, and for a year or so after the ritual Gertrude wonders if she will ever stop discovering new ones, finding the Desolation in small everyday actions.

She can no longer burn herself on candles and lighters, and she sometimes allows her cigarettes to burn down to the filter without noticing. She now drinks her coffee scalding, and no matter how long she lets it sit the temperature never wavers. She doesn’t need a jacket, even in snow, though she wears one for posterity.

Gertrude has been remade in a thousand small ways until sometimes her own body is alien to her. She would be resentful if she didn’t also know that she’d do it all again to stop the Lightless Flame.

She sees Agnes in her dreams sometimes, but always at a distance, almost out of sight.

So, Gertrude doesn’t really _see_ Agnes again for nearly a decade. Gertrude’s newly thirty three and she’s been struggling with a dead end for the better part of four months, Wright being no help at all as Gertrude attempts to find more information on a potential ritual for the Corruption. She heads home more exhausted than usual, frustrated with the Institute and angry with Wright. Standing on the sidewalk in front of her flat and stripping her jacket off in short, aborted actions, too tired to pretend she’s not overheated even in the brisk fall wind, she catches sight of a figure out of the corner of her eye.

It’s Diego Molina. He’s leaning against a lamppost and watching her, the bright red spot of a lit cigarette illuminating the parts of his face that the lamppost leaves in shadow. This isn’t the first time that he’s followed her, members of the Cult of the Lightless Flame have been stalking her in one way or another since the ritual, but it’s the first time she’s wanted something that they might be able to give her.

Gertrude stares at him for a moment, deciding. She’s not as rash as she used to be, not nearly as foolish as she was when she rushed into a ritual and let the Web manipulate her into its plans.

Gertrude does not enjoy pointless actions.

Folding her jacket over one arm, Gertrude turns sharply on her heel and marches across the street. Molina straightens almost imperceptibly. She’s never interacted with her stalkers like this, preferring to thwart them in less direct ways, but Gertrude is at the end of her rope. Maybe it’s time to destroy some things.

“Diego Molina,” she says sternly when they’re even with each other, “I’m Gertrude Robinson.”

Molina is still leaning against the lamppost, but stiffly rather than casually. He’s watching her like she’s a wild animal he doesn’t know how to handle.

“I know who you are,” he growls.

Gertrude nods, “Good. Then you know who I work for and what I aim to do.”

Molina gives a grunt of assent, still eyeing her warily. He’s always been smart; she’ll give him that. But Gertrude Robinson is not easily intimidated. There’s smart, there’s practical, and then there’s getting in her way when she’s decided she’s going to do something.

“You’re going to help me stop a ritual for the Corruption,” she tells him firmly, “Tell me where to find your avatar.”

Molina scoffs at her. Not as smart as she thought he was, then, though definitely as stubborn.

In one swift motion, Gertrude grabs Molina’s wrist, the one still idly holding his cigarette, and twists. Molina gives a short noise of surprise, spun around with his arm pinned behind his back, and his skin immediately turns to an ordinarily unbearable temperature. Unfazed, Gertrude jams her knee into Molina’s back and slams him face-first into the lamppost. His skin continues to melt around him, but Gertrude’s lack of reaction to the heat of it seems to have thrown Molina.

She hates using it, but Molina is too dedicated to his cause to willfully give her any information. Leaning in close, headless of the boiling temperature of Molina’s skin, Gertrude hears her voice crackle with power as she hisses, “ _Tell me where to find Agnes Montague._ ”

Voice strained as though trying his hardest to resist, Molina rattles off a street address in a part of town that Gertrude recognizes. When he’s finished he throws his head backwards, narrowly missing a collision with Gertrude’s nose.

“What do you want with her?” he demands. She’s not sure, but Gertrude thinks that Molina might sound nervous.

“I told you,” Gertrude says, releasing Molina’s arm and stepping away. “You’re going to help me stop the Corruption.”

Molina whirls to glare at her, his skin still dripping slow and viscous, like wax. Gertrude barely spares him a glance before turning to march down the street in the direction of the address she was given. When she doesn’t hear accompanying footsteps, Gertrude looks over her shoulder at Molina.

“Well?” she asks icily, “Are you coming or not?”

…

The woman who answers the door to Gertrude’s staccato knock is at once exactly and also nothing like who Gertrude imagines Agnes Montague to be. In her dreams Agnes is waifish and ghost-like, a pale candle flame flickering in the edges of her vision. This woman is tall, thin and long-limbed but without the disproportionate awkwardness of her teenage self, with a curtain of auburn hair that turns to a shining halo of gold where the overhead light reflects off her crown. But most captivating of all are her eyes, which glow with an internal light like lanterns, huge and rimmed by pale lashes. Gertrude finds herself immediately and undeniably enthralled.

Agnes does not seem to be surprised to see her, nor surprised to see the lurking figure of Molina behind her.

“You’re meddling again,” Agnes says. Her voice is soft, inviting Gertrude to step closer to hear her. Gertrude keeps her feet planted firmly where they are.

“Of course I am,” Gertrude snaps, using irritation to mask the pull she feels towards this highly dangerous woman, “It’s what I do.”

“And why have you come to me, Archivist?” Agnes asks, tilting her head to the side curiously. It’s a charming affectation. Gertrude stubbornly resists finding it cute, or any other soft-edged descriptors. She reminds herself that this woman could incinerate her with a thought.

She attempts valiantly to not find that fact frighteningly attractive.

“Because you have something I could use,” Gertrude says bluntly.

“Oh?” Agnes rewards her with a small smile, almost imperceptible in the round blankness of her face, “And what could someone like me offer the Beholding?”

“I’m going to stop a ritual,” Gertrude tells her, no room for argument in her tone, “I could use your help.”

They stare each other down for several long moments. Gertrude can feel Molina’s eyes boring into her, as well as his longing to voice his opinion of the situation, but she ignores him. With Agnes’s wide lantern-eyes to look at, ignoring everything else is fairly easy.

“Very well,” Agnes says eventually, “Do you have a plan?”

…

In the end, the Cult of the Lightless Flame do very little. They follow her in droves, clustering a few blocks away from the Institute while she’s at work and following closely behind when she’s out. Gertrude spends a few nights on her cot in the Archives just to see what will happen and is gratified when her stalkers appear slightly exhausted on the following mornings. They clog the foot traffic around her and scare the employees at her regular coffee shop and generally make a nuisance of themselves.

Agnes, on the other hand, seems to delight in coming and going without being seen. If Gertrude weren’t deeply aware of Agnes’ position in relation to the Desolation she would wonder if Agnes were passing through the Lonely just to avoid detection. But whatever the method used, Gertrude cannot predict when she will find Agnes at her door, looking graceful and untouchable as ever, and be softly invited to continue their planning sessions.

It’s Agnes who really deals the final blow against the Corruption, incinerating the disgusting ritual in an inferno so hot it turns the followers and collected elements to ash in seconds. Gertrude is impressed to say the least. Agnes turns to her, illuminated by the remnants of her flames, and meets Gertrude’s eyes as though she didn’t just destroy several dozen people in a matter of seconds.

For the first time in her life, Gertrude sees Agnes Montague smile.

“What are you thinking about?” Agnes asks, doing her charming head tilt of curiosity.

“Explosives,” Gertrude says, because she staunchly refuses to admit that the answer is _you._

…

“I hear you successfully thwarted another ritual,” James Wright says the next day, stopping by her desk to peer blandly at the paperwork she’s working on.

“Saw that, did you?” Gertrude asks pointedly, ignoring the way Wright’s presence makes her hair stand on end. If Agnes were to incinerate Wright like she had those followers of the Corruption Gertrude wouldn’t bat an eye. She’d be tempted to try it if she thought it would do any good.

Wright chuckles, low and so deeply condescending it sets Gertrude’s teeth on edge. “Indeed. Good work, Archivist.”

Gertrude lets out an irritated huff and returns to her work, not relaxing from her posture of stiff concentration until she hears the door click behind her boss.

“All-seeing bastard,” she mutters, because she knows he can hear her.

That night when Gertrude gets home, she feels strung out and exhausted. She thinks she should be celebrating after a successful maneuver against the Corruption, but instead she just feels tired. Existing in the vicinity of Wright’s smug aura is enough to drain her faster than any confrontation could.

It’s because of this that when she finally swings open the door to her flat, she doesn’t immediately realize that there’s someone already inside.

Her sidearm is out and aimed as soon as she does, though, only to be met with eyes she has become increasingly familiar with over the last few weeks.

“Really, Archivist,” Agnes says in her soft voice, “Have I done something to warrant this hostility?”

Sighing heavily, Gertrude flicks the safety back on and sets her gun on the kitchen counter. If Agnes really is here to kill her, which she doubts, a gun isn’t going to do much anyway. Gertrude turns on the light in the kitchen and begins going through the motions of making tea.

“You can at least call me Gertrude,” she says tiredly, “I believe we’re past titles at this point.”

She hears Agnes stand, padding across the small divide from the living room to the kitchen. Gertrude finds herself on high alert for any noise Agnes makes, and she is uncomfortably aware of her exposed back.

“Are we now?” Agnes sounds amused, “Very well, Gertrude.”

The way she says it still sounds like a title of some kind, but Gertrude lets it go. She’s already going prematurely grey, and she has more important things to worry about than what people call her.

“Are you here for a reason?” Gertrude asks, setting the kettle on the stove. She wonders if the water will boil faster with Agnes here.

Agnes hums thoughtfully, “Must I be here for a reason?”

Gertrude turns to narrow her eyes suspiciously at her guest. Agnes must read the doubt on Gertrude’s face, because she flashes her teeth at Gertrude, a small smile. It transforms her, taking her beautiful and doll-like features and turning them radiant.

“Do you want me to leave?” Agnes asks, her voice so quiet that Gertrude almost doesn’t hear it.

She must be truly worn out because for the first time in their acquaintanceship Gertrude gives in to the desire to step closer to Agnes. There’s little more than half a meter between them, now, and maybe it’s the proximity or the day she’s had but Gertrude can’t stop the too-honest “No.” that escapes her.

Agnes’s smile dims to something quieter, more intimate, and Gertrude feels herself sway impossibly closer. She can feel the heat of Agnes’s skin, hotter than candles and cigarettes have been in nearly a decade. She can smell something, like spices and woodsmoke, and Gertrude wants desperately to bury her face in Agnes’s hair and breathe it in from the source.

“I’m going to kiss you,” Gertrude says, less of a question than she means it to be.

Agnes nods seriously, as though answering a completely different question, and says, “Yes.”

Agnes’s skin is feverish. Gertrude feels in intensely in her palm against the side of Agnes’s face, in Agnes’s hand on her waist, in her lips. The feeling of it fills Gertrude’s senses, like the smell of spices and woodsmoke fills her mouth and nose, and when Gertrude opens her mouth and deepens the kiss the heat becomes all-consuming. She finds herself desperate for it, tugging at Agnes’s clothes to seek it out, reaching a hand to curl into Agnes’s hair.

A shrill noise cuts through the air–the kettle going off–and Gertrude pulls away with great effort, reluctant. Agnes releases her, but her lantern eyes stay locked on Gertrude as Gertrude removes the kettle from the stove. As soon as she finishes setting it down, Agnes is on her, her hands against Gertrude’s bare arms, her mouth on Gertrude’s skin.

Gertrude loses herself in it again, her back against the kitchen counter. It isn’t until Agnes gets a hand under her shirt, eliciting a full-body shudder from Gertrude, that Gertrude pulls away long enough to say, roughly, “The bedroom is over there.”

Agnes leans forward to scrape her teeth against the skin at the hinge of Gertrude’s jaw. Gertrude thinks she knows, now, what it must feel like for the followers of the Lightless Flame to turn to wax.

Agnes’s breath is hot against her skin as she whispers, “Lead the way.”

…

Gertrude Robinson has never had what some might call a ‘religious experience’. She’s encountered plenty of pious worshipers in her life, whether attendants to one of the Entities or followers of more mundane deities, but she’s never felt the desire to devote herself to any of the religions she’s come across. Belief is as powerful as it is useless, and Gertrude prefers to reserve her belief for things she knows she can count on.

So, Gertrude would not say that sex with Agnes Montague is a religious experience. There are no bright lights, no earth shaking revelations. Her world does not tilt on its axis. 

In fact, she would say that sex with Agnes Montague is a humanizing experience. Skin and sweat and rushed, fumbling, movements. Desperation and awkwardness and pleasure. Watching a being of immense and unknowable power tremble beneath her from something as simple as touch.

For the first time in their relationship, Gertrude thinks that Agnes Montague might be just another human being stumbling through life, just like everyone else.

...

Agnes is gone when Gertrude wakes the next morning, faint scorch marks on Gertrude’s sheets the only evidence of her presence. Gertrude searches herself and finds her feelings utterly unaffected. She thinks she might be more worried if Agnes asked her to make breakfast or take a walk in a park. So, Gertrude gets up and goes to work, only the faint taste of spices and woodsmoke lingering in her mouth.

Her life goes on. Wright continues to be an absolute micromanaging bastard of a boss, her new assistants continue to be approximately twelve years old and just as competent, and Gertrude focuses on her next step in the never ending fight against powers she can’t control or predict.

She does notice that her stalkers have become less blatant in their movements, and she wonders if this is Agnes’s doing.

It’s been nearly eight months since stopping the Corruption when Gertrude comes back to her apartment and finds someone already inside. She’s more alert this time, but also slightly more prepared, so her gun stays hidden rather than drawn on the woman in her living room.

“Gertrude,” Agnes says, though Gertrude can hear the undertone of _Archivist_.

“Is this going to become a habit?” Gertrude asks, shrugging off her jacket and leaving her shoes by the door. She sets her gun on the counter and takes confident steps towards the avatar on her couch.

“Do you have a problem with it?” Agnes’s tone is honestly curious. Gertrude scoffs.

“Do you?” she mutters against Agnes’s lips. Agnes doesn’t answer, choosing instead to grab Gertrude by the hair and crush their mouths together.

Agnes is gone again when Gertrude wakes sometime in the night. There are scorch marks again this time, and Gertrude wonders if she’ll need to start buying new sheets with more frequency. There is also, she finds the next morning, a folded note on the living room table containing information on her latest pursuit. Gertrude reads it carefully before burning it.

She can’t help but think that she likes Agnes’s handwriting.

…

“Here,” Wright says, dropping a handful of papers onto her desk, “For your friend.”

Gertrude squints at the paperwork before glancing back at Wright. She can never be sure exactly how much he knows, but she’s relatively certain that Wright doesn’t care about her work with Dekker, so long as she gets results. He’s never mentioned it before, in any case.

“Oh, no, not him,” Wright laughs, waving her thoughts away without waiting for her to voice them, “Your, how should I put this, _nighttime_ friend. She should be paying you a visit this evening, I believe.”

Gertrude narrows her eyes, “Are you spying on my sex life, James?”

Wright laughs again, an airy sound that never fails to spike her irritation. She wonders if Wright is capable of making a sound that doesn’t scream _white man with old money_.

“Gertrude,” Wright bares his teeth at her in a painfully condescending way, “I spy on anything and everything that may threaten the Institute or my interests, of course. If you’d prefer for me to stay out of it, might I suggest not taking the chosen one of the Desolation to your bed?”

“Ignoring how completely inappropriate it is for you to tell me how or with whom I choose to spend my time, are you telling me not to see her?” Gertrude asks mildly, hoping that Wright can sense the barely restrained wrath behind her words.

“Well, that would be completely inappropriate, as you say,” Wright hums thoughtfully, “Please continue to spend your free time with whomever you like. However, I would suggest,” he pauses meaningfully, “Shall we say, _keeping an eye_ on her.”

Wright chuckles at his own joke before turning to leave her office.

“Wonderful work, as always, Archivist,” he calls over his shoulder. Gertrude fantasizes about throwing something large and heavy at his head and hopes he can See that too.

…

Agnes always leaves at least six months between their meetings. Sometimes she’ll appear again almost to the day, impatiently pressing Gertrude up against the door of her flat. Other times she’ll wait as long as nine or ten months before Gertrude finds her curled up against the arm of Gertrude’s couch, small and quietly defiant. There are few constants in their relationship, but this time frame remains undisputed. She always waits at least six months, she always appears at least once a year, she always waits for Gertrude to make the first move.

This is one of the shorter time frames, only seven months or so, and Gertrude arrives at her flat to find Agnes with a cup of tea staring forlornly out Gertrude’s living room window. It’s been more than a decade since they started whatever this is, and Gertrude is somewhat familiar with Agnes’s habits by now, so she pours herself her own cup of tea from the still scalding kettle and goes to sit across from Agnes.

“Do you know why I keep coming back?” Agnes asks after a few minutes, her voice as soft as ever.

“Because I’m excellent in bed,” Gertrude deadpans, taking a sip of her tea.

Agnes smiles faintly, meeting Gertrude’s eyes for the first time since Gertrude sat down.

“I don’t know what it means to be truly human,” Agnes admits. She gestures vaguely to her own body, “I’ve been like this since I was born. To not have this fire, this destruction, inside of me…I don’t know what that’s like.”

Gertrude inclines her head, indicating that she’s listening.

Agnes nudges her still steaming cup of tea, spinning the handle idly, “But ever since you bound us, whenever you’re around I feel,” she takes a shuddering breath, “ _Grounded_. Like I know where my feet are. Like for a few hours I can be _normal_.”

“You know I’m not fully human either,” Gertrude reminds her mildly. Agnes shoots her a look, half amusement and half exasperation.

“You would gut your own mother if it would get you what you want,” Agnes says bluntly, “You’re the most human person I know.”

Gertrude snorts, a smile curling at her mouth, “Good thing my mother lives in Kent, then. Much too far away. Not nearly worth the hassle.”

That startles a soft laugh out of Agnes. They settle back into silence, Gertrude sipping her tea, Agnes staring thoughtfully down at her hands.

“What brought this on?” Gertrude asks after a while, watching Agnes carefully.

“We acquired a new acolyte recently,” Agnes admits, “She thinks she’s in love with me.”

“And what do you think?”

Agnes turns slowly, until her wide eyes are fixed unerringly on Gertrude.

“I think,” she says firmly, “That you should take me to bed.”

…

For the first time in their relationship, Gertrude wakes to the weight of a small furnace on her chest. Agnes is curled around her, her face pressed in Gertrude’s neck, and Gertrude lies still and stares at the ceiling for a very long time, breathing and listening to the breath of the woman next to her.

When Agnes finally blinks awake, her face soft with sleep and her hair spread across the bed like tendrils of flame, Gertrude thinks that she’s never seen anything more breathtaking.

Gertrude makes her breakfast. She knows, deep in the part of her that always knows, that this will not end happily for either of them.

Across the breakfast table, wearing a shirt she stole from Gertrude’s dresser, Agnes smiles.

…

Gertrude meets Jude Perry shortly after Jude becomes an avatar.

It’s been twenty three years since Gertrude performed a ritual that she could not have predicted the consequences for, and in that time the Cult of the Lightless Flame has become slightly laxer in their surveillance of her. The Cult must know about her liaisons with Agnes, Gertrude thinks, though she’s never been entirely sure. Whatever the case, she hardly bothers to watch them out of the corner of her eye anymore, and they mostly stay out of her way.

Which is why it’s such a surprise when someone who Gertrude is fairly certain has been trailing her all day, attempts to attack her from behind.

A wave of heat passes over her head, barely grazing her and filling the alley with the smell of burning hair. Gertrude kicks backward and connects with something solid, a startled grunt of pain leaving her assailant. Gertrude straightens and spins on her heel to aim her gun at whatever idiot decided to attack her in broad daylight.

She comes face to face with a snarling young woman, her teeth bared like she’d like nothing better than to tear a chunk of Gertrude out with them.

“You’d be the new acolyte, then,” Gertrude says calmly, not moving her gun. It won’t kill this woman, but it might buy Gertrude a few seconds to think of a better solution.

“And you’re the Archivist,” Jude drawls, still showing off as many teeth as she can, “The one who takes liberties with Agnes.”

“No liberties I haven’t been given permission to take.”

Jude laughs, reedy and cackling. It sounds cruel. Gertrude knows well what the initiation process for the Cult of the Lightless Flame is. Jude Perry looks like a woman who hadn’t hesitated.

“I’m going to kill you someday, Archivist,” Jude promises.

Gertrude huffs, unamused, “I advise you join the queue.”

She knows how she’s going to die, and it won’t be at the hands of a newly minted acolyte of the Desolation.

…

The way that the Cult treats Agnes has always been a subject of curiosity for Gertrude. To some of them she is a powerful tool, to others a daughter, to still others a god incarnate. Never just a woman, never just Agnes; though Gertrude knows that in their time together the two of them are also playing roles, playing at human.

To Jude Perry, Agnes is a messiah.

Gertrude watches them, sometimes, when she does some role reversal of her own and checks up on the Cult members’ activities. She watches Jude follow Agnes with an air of fervent dedication masquerading as friendship. She watches Jude’s careful nonchalance, the flares of her passion that she can’t quite cover, the way she follows Agnes like a stray animal begging for kindness.

Gertrude searches herself for jealousy and finds none, only her usual bafflement with religious dedication. She wouldn’t trade her own steady determination for all the faith in the world.

…

The last time Gertrude sees Agnes they nearly set her bed on fire. Gertrude pulls back from Agnes’s mouth to breathe shakily up at the ceiling, spices and woodsmoke on her tongue, ash against her fingers. Agnes buries her face in Gertrude’s neck, clutching at her shoulders with too much force, a desperation to her that Gertrude hasn’t seen in a while.

“Please,” Agnes whispers against Gertrude’s skin, and Gertrude doesn’t know how to help her, so she kisses her instead.

After, Agnes keeps her face turned away, wrapped around Gertrude as though she needs something to hold on to, something to anchor her.

“There’s a boy,” Agnes whispers after an indeterminable amount of silence, “At a cafe I go to. He thinks he’s in love with me.”

Gertrude remembers Agnes using those same words for Jude. _They think they love me._ Gertrude wonders if anyone has ever truly loved Agnes Montague, or if she is doomed to a life of insincere affection and misguided worship. It truly is a shame if all she has is Gertrude, who doesn’t know if she’s ever loved anything the way she’s supposed to.

“Something is going to happen soon,” Agnes says. She sounds sure, in the way she has that makes Gertrude know she’s right.

“Something bad?” Gertrude asks, trying to sound unconcerned. In their world it’s always something bad.

Agnes presses her nose against Gertrude’s throat, “Something big. I don’t know if I’ll survive it.”

Gertrude doesn’t have a response to that. She curls her fingers in Agnes’s hair and breathes.

The next morning Agnes sticks around long enough to smile tiredly and steal an energy bar out of Gertrude’s pantry. After she leaves Gertrude finds a folded up note tucked into the flowerpot on the kitchen counter.

_‘His name is Barnabas’_ the note says, ‘ _don’t let them kill him.’_

…

It’s a grey and dismal November afternoon when Gertrude feels invisible strings in her arms wrench and _pull_ for the first time in thirty seven years. It’s not a feeling she’ll ever forget, a feeling from the most painful day of her life, and Gertrude doesn’t scream but she has to grit her teeth to stop it. She’s outside of the Institute when it happens, and Gertrude half wants to go inside and ask Elias for confirmation of what she already knows.

Agnes Montague is dead.

She props herself up against the wall of the Institute and breathes deeply, hoping to dispel some of the aching pain in her body, only half of which is physical.

“I Know,” Gertrude snaps testily at no one, “She’ll get here when she gets here.”

Gertrude breathes and waits.

She stays leaning against the wall for nearly two hours before a familiar woman charges at her out of the crowd of pedestrians.

“You!” Jude Perry screams, pointing a threatening finger at Gertrude. Her face looks faintly wet.

“Me,” Gertrude agrees, baring her teeth.

“You had something to do with this,” Jude hisses, leaning close enough for Gertrude to feel the heat of her breath. Gertrude gets the sense that Jude doesn’t like that she was prepared for this encounter.

“And what if I did?” Gertrude demands coolly, “Are you going to kill me for it?”

“I should have killed you years ago,” Jude growls, “I should have ripped your heart out of your chest and burned it to ashes.”

“Oh?” Gertrude sneers, “What makes you think you could?”

“Agnes isn’t here to protect you anymore, Archivist,” Jude snarls.

Gertrude plants her feet and lifts her chin. She’s afraid of many things, has learned it through time and experience, but the Lightless Flame hasn’t scared her since she was twenty four years old and it’s not about to start now.

“I never needed her protection,” Gertrude says, “Try and kill me if you like. But know that I won’t hesitate to destroy you.”

Jude makes a wordless noise of fury before grabbing Gertrude by the collar of her shirt, which immediately begins to smoke. She leans in so close their noses brush, but Gertrude doesn’t flinch or back down.

Jude exhales shakily, her breath against Gertrude’s face, “I couldn’t have her. Maybe having you would be close enough.”

Gertrude meets her eyes and doesn’t look away, “Nothing you could take from me would make up for your loss. Now back off, if you know what’s good for you.”

They stay locked for a few more beats of dragging tension before Jude releases her in one explosive action, backing away and glaring fiercely the whole time. Without another word she turns and disappears back into the crowd.

Gertrude lets herself breathe for a few short seconds.

“That isn’t the last we’ve seen of them,” Gertrude tells the air, “I have some work to do.”

She squares her shoulders and turns to go back into the Institute.

She soldiers on. There really aren’t any other options.


End file.
